The Forgotten
by Not A Ghost3
Summary: The wind never blows the same direction, especially not for young Christine Daaé. In the midst of war, the forgotten can never truly stay that way. Snapshots of love through war...Civil War AU. One-shot. R/C. Leroux-ish. Won 2nd place in littlelonghairedoutlaw's AU contest!


**Ok! I'm a day late and a dollar short but here is my entry for littlelonghairedoutlaw's AU contest! It is a Civil War AU set in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina and is R/C with hints of E/C and Pharoga later on!**

**I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the Civil War era (used to be in a Civil War outdoor drama every summer when I was younger) and a lot of historical research went into this, but I didn't layer in too heavily the true horrors of the war so I tweaked a few facts for the sake of the story. If you're a huge history buff, the changes are minor and the story still reads fine!**

**Alright! It's a long one and this one means a lot to me! It was inspired by the song "Forgotten" by the bluegrass band The Punch Brothers so if you'd like, go ahead and listen to that to set the mood for you! It's really a gorgeous song and I just listen to it over and over again!**

**As always, any and all reviews are greatly appreciated! (Especially since R/C is outside of my writing comfort zone!)**

* * *

There was mist.

Not the thick kind that clouded vision like the fog that crowded the city that Papa would take her to sometimes, but rather a thin, wispy spirit that floated low to the ground, safely encasing her. The tips of the hay grazed the mist, gently swaying in the wind that breezed around. The wind had always been kind to her, always blowing the right way to keep her hair out of her face or to blow the leaves away from her path. For a girl without many friends, she considered the wind one of her closest. Well, next after the little boy she searched for now.

A flash of red ran past her.

"Aha! I see you!" She called, lifting her skirt up before running through the mud after her playmate, her two braids blowing wildly behind her.

The red disappeared and the breeze stilled for a moment. She stopped as well to look around. Where had he gone? The mist had grown thicker around her, only letting her see a few feet in front of her. She blinked and pulled on one of her curls that had come free of the constraint of her braid, thinking of where to go next when a force from behind her knocked her face first onto the dewy ground.

"Raoul!"

"Ha! I win again, little Lotte! I saved the scarf!" A voice exclaimed, holding a ratty, red knit scarf high above his head, blowing in the breeze along with his sand hair.

She flipped over so that she could see him sitting on top of her. "No fair!" she shrieked, giggles lacing her voice.

A gust of wind swept by and took the scarf from the little boys grasp, blowing it further out into the hayfield.

The wind has always been _so _kind to her.

She kicked him off her and took off after the scarf again, Raoul's laughter echoing through the field as he took off barefoot after her.

She had never been happier

* * *

Raoul had told her that he was bringing a new book from Charleston for her.

She had told him where to meet her and she had already grabbed a blanket from her bed and a few molasses cookies from the nice lady who lived across the hill from her who had packed them in a nice little basket.

There was a tree on the far side of the front hayfield that a windstorm had knocked a large branch off a few summers ago. It was easy to spot and provided the best shade on summer days when everywhere she stepped was hot.

"Chrissy!"

"Raoul!" She exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. "I brought us a surprise from the old lady across the hill— she told me she baked them fresh this morning because she knew you were coming to town!"

He smiled that cheeky smile of his as she opened her basket and he snatched a cookie from it.

"Good, I haven't had anything to eat since before we got off the train!"

With that he plopped himself on the blanket, a book in his other hand.

"Is that it? The one you told me about in your letters?"

He nodded and opened it up, still chewing.

"Philippe brought it over from France after he went to visit Grandmother and Grandfather...he may not be aware that I have it..."

"Raoul!" Christine giggled before reaching into the basket for her own cookie.

He turned the cover page over to reveal the first page, however as she looked over her shoulder at it, she couldn't make out a single word. Her father could write but wasn't great at reading, so Raoul had taught her over his summer visits when his family came to visit their relatives nearby. Raoul had taught her to read and to write and to spell, but she couldn't help but wonder if this book was some sort of trick.

"Raoul, I don't know any of those words!"

"That's because it is in French, silly!"

She blinked.

"Well I don't know how to speak French, much less read it—"

"I know."

So he read it _to_ her instead.

* * *

He found her sitting under their tree.

"I came as soon as Philippe and I could get here— how is he?"

She didn't turn to look back at him.

"He's gone."

"Oh Christine..."

She felt his hand come to rest on her shoulders, then a rustling as he sat on the ground beside her before she was tugged into a hug, her head tucked into the space between his shoulder and chin.

"I tried so hard..." a broken cry came from her, her hands fisting into her apron. "I did everything right but he's still gone..."

Raoul hugged her tighter, leaned back against the tree.

Together in the silence they both grieved for the man that had raised them both.

She never wanted to hear music again.

Her father's death had taken that with him too.

* * *

"Aunt Valérius told me I couldn't stay here by myself."

"Well of course not, you're only what? Fourteen? My sisters are older than that and Philippe doesn't even like them in the house by themselves!"

"Ma Giry across the way told me she'd take care of me."

"Christine...your Aunt is your family though—"

"But she wants to take me away from here! From the only place I've ever known! I belong here, these are _my_ mountains...How can I just leave? After all they've done for me...I don't want to live in Charleston."

"I live in Charleston. Do you not want to live near me?"

"That's not it at all, Raoul, I would love to live near you, but I'd rather you live _here_. With me."

"One day, little Lotte, I'll bring you back, and we'll live here and read all day and never worry about leaving ever again."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

* * *

They buried him in the family cemetery behind the old wooden church on the hill, his treasured violin tucked into the casket with him.

The wind stopped blowing as they lowered him down.

Her Aunt came to collect her the next day.

* * *

Corsets were modern day torture devices.

No doubt in her mind.

She sucked in another breath as her Aunt pulled another lace tighter than she would like.

"Christine, really, there is no need for such dramatics! My daughters your age have been wearing these for years now," her aunt chided her, still working on the laces.

"I just do not see the need for such," she sighed, flustered and a loss for the right wording, "for such a contraption."

She would never had to of worn one at home. They weren't practical. They weren't good for tending to the vegetable garden or collecting the hay from the field or bundling it to be sold. Papa had more than enough sense to know that such frivolities were unneeded in her life. Papa would've never made her wear such a thing.

How she wished he were here now to tell Aunt Valérius that.

If he were here she wouldn't have to be here at all.

She frowned and held the edge of her bedpost tighter.

* * *

She had never been to such a party.

Ball gowns of every shade, shape and pattern decorated the room like brightly painted ornaments upon a Christmas tree. Of course, they weren't actually ornaments and it wasn't Christmas. Quite the opposite— Charleston blazed that particular afternoon, not a cloud to be seen in the sky. She flicked her paper and wood fan faster in an attempt to create more of a breeze. Late August had always been hot back home in her mountains but this was beyond _hot_. The sun was _melting_ the ground she stood on. There was simply no other way to describe it.

She walked backwards until her back hit the cool glass of the large window over viewing the yard and gardens.

_Ah..._

She slouched a bit and allowed her eyes to close, imagining a place far away from the pristinely polished floor she stood on. Perhaps a snow capped mountain up North from the stories her Papa told in her youth...or a cool Autumn day by a stream, a book in her hand and a tree with shade to sit beneath—

"Why, that is no way for a lady as fine as yourself to stand now is it?"

Her eyes flew open.

She'd know that voice anywhere.

_Raoul!_

"Mr. Chagny!" she said in surprise, standing straighter.

He offered a single gloved hand to her, the other hid behind his back.

"Miss Daaé," he said cheekily with a bow of his head.

She giggled and placed her hand in his before he raised it to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss.

Goodness, he hadn't changed a bit.

All polite manners and gentleness but still a rowdy gleam to his eye. A smile snuck it's way to her face as his lips lingered above her hand. His childish curls had remained as he matured and had only darkened slightly through the years.

Slowly, she retracted her hand, a smirk playing at her lips.

"I like the mustache," she attempted to say with a straight face before bursting into another fit of giggles, closing her fan as she turned away to laugh.

Blush crept to his cheeks and he raised a hand to pat at his upper lip.

"Oh, yes," he cleared his throat. "it's new," he shrugged.

"I gathered that much," she said, taking a step closer to him, hands tucked behind her back.

"Yes, well, actually Philippe is the one who told me to grow it. He said it made me more," he paused to lean in close as if he was telling a secret, "_manly."_

At that they both started into a laughing fit, tittering like a couple of schoolchildren.

More than a few heads turned their direction.

"Oh, Raoul, how I've missed you!" Christine exclaimed after calming down from her laughter. "It has been miserable here without you. Simply miserable," she said resting a hand on the lapel of his coat.

He nodded and brushed aside a lock of her hair from her face. "Then I hope that you'll accept my kindest apology for leaving you here at home with nothing to do but swoon while awaiting my return!"

He snatched the fan from her hand and dramatically began fanning himself, his other hand over his heart.

Her eyes narrowed playfully.

"This is not my home. You know I would give anything to _really_ be home again instead of here. I would collect hay from every single field to go back—I'd do it by myself too!"

She took her fan back from his hands and held it with both of hers.

"Well, that may be, but I for one am glad you are here."

She smiled. For all the trouble she gave him he was never bitter; always gracious, always kind, always had the right words to say.

"How was your trip?"

"Just fine! Emilia's baby is handsome for a baby, if I do say so myself. Healthy too," he excitedly told her, beaming from ear to ear.

He had been gone for a little over two months due to the letter his brother-in-law had sent announcing the birth of his nephew, causing him and his brother to travel to Wilmington to visit the new family. An unfamiliar feeling lurched in her chest. It wasn't jealousy, yet it wasn't joy either. She had missed him.

"Will you be staying home longer this time?" She asked, flicking the fan back out.

A sad smile crossed his face.

"Forgive me for saying, but I don't know."

There was a pause.

Silence was never something she enjoyed.

"Is it..." she swallowed down the words she didn't want to say, but seemed to shout themselves in the silence between them.

There had been talk of it for years— listening in on conversations between her Aunt and her friends with higher connections. Talk of South Carolina leaving to start their own country, talk of a new government, talk of war.

_War._

She hated that word. Hated it with all she had. It was stupid, really— a war over what?

"I mean, it is only talk that I've overheard from Philippe's study..." he glanced down, scratching the back of his head.

"I think it's stupid."

"Christine!" He whispered, shocked, but with an amused smile. "That is no way to talk— suppose your Aunt heard you?"

"So? I am a woman of my own accord, she has no control over what I should or shouldn't say," she sniffed, fanning herself harder.

Raoul fidgeted in front of her. He was of more sophisticated upbringing than her and she knew that it bothered him that she had never had the same respect of propriety and manners that he been taught as a child.

"Well, I must admit that I agree with you. A fight over whether or not it is right to own another person...Ridiculous. You cannot own people!" he said in a hushed tone, his eyes glancing around to be sure no one could hear his words.

"But your family owns slaves."

"My _family. _Not me."

She stared into the blue of his eyes as the silence filled the space between them with thick, unwanted tension.

She wouldn't know how to cope if he left.

"I believe I heard talks of a square dance this evening after your Aunt's dinner— I suppose you already have a partner?" he shyly asked, smartly changing the subject.

She was glad that she wasn't the only person who didn't want to focus on the days ahead of them.

"Why, yes, I do."

He frowned.

"I believe he is standing right in front of me."

She flicked her fan closed and watched his eyes light back up.

She couldn't bear to lose him.

* * *

April 14, 1861.

She could still feel the echoes of shots shaking the walls.

Her eyes were wide as she opened the front door to none other than Raoul, eyes red and tears streaming down his cheeks.

She'd nearly missed the whisper that escaped his lips.

_Philippe is dead._

Shot by a rogue Union soldier while fleeing Fort Sumter, straight through the chest. A general had shown up at the Chagny house late the previous night to deliver the news.

She knew then and there her world was changing.

She just didn't know how much.

* * *

"You're leaving."

It was a statement, not a question.

She knew it. Knew it. She'd always known it was coming.

It made her all the more upset.

"Christine..." he reached out to her, following her off her Aunt's back porch and towards the edge of the field by the woods. "Christine, stop for a moment, please. Let me explain—"

"No!" she whirled around on him, her nightgown swishing around her ankles. "You promised, _promised_ me to not get involved in this mess. People have died, Raoul, _are_ dying—"

"I know, I know!" he caught her by the shoulders, not violently— never violently — but with the gentleness of a mouse dealing with a lion. "That's why I have to go."

She pursed her lips.

"For Philippe. I can't let his death be for nothing."

Her face softened.

For all the anger she held inside her, sadness crept in. Death was one thing she could understand. Philippe had been the closest thing Raoul had to a father for most of his existence. Life was not fair to orphans and Raoul had been lucky enough to have been born into the right family with a caring enough brother to step up and care for him.

He was the only one she truly trusted to understand the pain she felt when her own father died.

She uncrossed her arms.

"Raoul," she said under her breath, stepping toward him. "I can't lose you too..."

There it was.

She'd been holding it in since before the war started, since before her father passed. Admitting it out loud to him was like releasing every burden off her shoulder yet at the same time it felt like she was throwing them all on to Raoul. He didn't need to worry about anything else at the moment. He was a man of the right age with the right ambition and the right family name and the right history of military background—

But that didn't give him any better odds of surviving.

Everyone was pawns, ready to be tossed away for the greater cause. Raoul couldn't be, _couldn't_ be tossed away like any unimportant chess piece.

She _loved_ him.

How long had she known that yet still hadn't told him?

The phrase buzzed on her lips, longing to be said as she watched his face fall from his frustrated expression to one of dejection.

"You don't understand, do you?" His hand slid from her shoulders to her elbow, his fingers soft on her skin in the cool of the early autumn night.

"What is there for me to understand? I've lost all I've ever known except you. I can't stand by idle and let you get yourself killed over...over revenge? Is that what this is? My father died too, Raoul, it's hard I know it is. But it's not worth going to war over." She was up against his chest now, both hands resting on his torso.

He gave her elbows a gentle squeeze.

The only sound between them was the cicadas in the trees around them and the wind rustling the leaves.

"I have to..." he finally said, his eyes focused over her head, towards the sky that held a full moon above them.

"I _have_ to."

"No you don't," she feebly fought back against his words, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. Why couldn't he see how much she needed him? She laid her head against his chest, her tears soaking his shirt beneath her.

"Marry me."

She stopped breathing.

Slowly she lifted her head to look at him, only to find his gaze still attached to the moon above.

"Are you...did you..." she couldn't find the words to confirm his proposal. Had he really just asked her to marry him? After she'd done nothing but shout at him for the past half of an hour and beg him not to leave?

He looked down at her.

"Marry me," he repeated, raising a hand to brush a curl from her face.

Her lips were pressed to his before she had time to even answer him.

_I love you, I love you, please don't leave me, please don't leave me, I love you_...

"I love you," she whispered into his lips between kisses. _I've always loved you._

They parted, each one lingering just a moment longer than they should.

"Is that a yes?"

She nodded and kissed him again, her fingers roaming until they were latched securely behind his head, holding him to her.

She pressed her forehead to his when they paused for breath. "Yes."

His smile faltered.

"The fleet leaves tomorrow morning."

She pulled back from him.

"How long...?"

Raoul, always so courageous, always the first with a kind word, always the first to stand up for what he believed in— he simply shook his head.

She felt him wipe away her tears before she even knew they were falling.

She shook her head, confused.

"I don't...how can you not know when it's going to be over?"

A grimace crossed his face, his eyes dull in the moonlight. "That's the nature of war, no one knows how it will end...or who it will take in the process..."

"I only have you for tonight?" Her voice was soft, barely loud enough for him to hear her faint inquiry.

"I love you so much, little Lotte," he said coming closer until he held her face in his hands.

His hands were so soft. They'd always been soft.

"Marry me."

"I will—"

"No," he cut her off, "marry me right now. Here, beneath the stars; God and the moon are the only witness I need."

So she did.

She let him lay her in the grass beneath the old willow tree behind her Aunt's house, husband to wife.

She didn't care if it wasn't valid in anyone else's eyes; it was real to her and Raoul and the stars above and that's all that mattered.

She kissed him goodbye before the sun could rise and prayed that it wouldn't be the last time.

* * *

The worrying came a month after Raoul had left. She wrote to him every chance she had, desperately hoping he would write back. And each time, he did.

Her menses hadn't come.

She thought nothing of it— after all, young ladies skipped months all the time— or at least that's what her Aunt assured her, innocently oblivious to anything that had happened before Raoul left.

Her menses still hadn't come the second month he was gone.

Or the third.

* * *

Her menses came a week into her third month.

The world still turned.

Her world seemed to stop.

* * *

She vowed to never tell Raoul.

* * *

She had never wanted to be a nurse.

Blood and gashes and stitches had never sparked any interest in her; tending to the wounded never very high up on her list of favorite things. Hadn't she paid penance enough watching and caring for her poor, late father during his illness?

The wooden door swung open again, another group of men carrying another bloody soldier entered, the mud on their boots sloshing on the wood floor.

How many did that make today?

She shuddered.

Clutching her mother's locket that hung around her neck, she turned her back to the door. Perhaps they wouldn't notice her standing there and would call out another name to assist. She wasn't the most well-trained nor dedicated, surely she wasn't the first choice. If she could just get out of any direct line of sight—

"Miss Daaé! The bandages! Quickly!"

Why did Aunt Valerius have to volunteer her for this?

She nodded and scurried off towards the back of the room where a table sat with assorted supplies that no one had the time to properly sort. To be honest, the medical camp was just lucky to even have the house to set up in at all, much less worry about organization. Without even a second glance she grabbed the bundle of gauze and ran back to where the head nurse was waiting around the floor with the injured man.

Silently, she placed the gauze beside the head nurse before backing up a few paces against the wall.

She hated the smell of this place.

Hated the walls, the floors, the sorry excuses of beds for the wounded, the windows that showed nothing but the ruin of the South of her childhood that she so dearly loved.

_Still_ loved.

The sky was grey beyond the window pane, rain trailing down the thin glass as if the sky cried for her.

The sky cried for itself.

God she missed home.

The amber hued hayfields, the trees that never grew brown with the seasons, the smell of the air after the setting of the sun, the clouds brushing the tips of the blue mountains, the wild deer that frequented the edge of the woods seeking the berries from the blackberry bush...If she just closed her eyes she was back, a young girl barefoot in the grass with no worries except what story her papa would tell her before bed. Only the wind to tell her secrets to, only the seeds of the dandelions to send her wishes to, only Raoul to play silly little games with in the heat of summer—

_Raoul_.

She prayed everyday that he wouldn't be carried in through the door.

She didn't even know where he was.

She hadn't received a letter in well over a month and she had heard tales of bigger battles that had happened, bigger issues to worry with— more men dead than alive.

She just wished to hold him again and look into his eyes and breathe. _Truly_ breathe for the first time in over two years. If she could just have some sort of contact from him to assure her of his safety—

But then again, no news was good news she supposed.

"Miss Daaé! Head out of the clouds— we've no time!"

Blinking, she shifted her attention back to the man on the ground. She lurched forward to her knees and held pressure against the bandage over the man's leg, blood seeping through the gauze and on to her hands.

"Ma'am," a thick accent drawled behind her. "is he gonna be alright? I did my best to take care of the bullet, but I could only do so much with only my knife..."

She pressed harder on the bandaged leg.

"Yes, well, we will do our best," the head nurse said flatly, eyes rolling up to meet the standing man.

_Heavenly Father, please let this man survive, please, if not for me then for this kind gentleman..._

"Please, he's the only kin I have left, I carried him here."

There was silence for a moment.

A rare moment of empathy crossed the eyes of the head nurse, a small frown set on her lips.

"We may have to remove the leg, but if he doesn't bleed out he'll survive. I'll be sure of it," she whispered to him, a softer tone to her voice and a gentle pat to the other man's hand. "Daaé, help me get him to an empty bed...if we have one..."

"Thank you, thank you truly."

Christine looked up only to see a darker skinned man in a tattered grey uniform; wisdom hidden in the greys of his hair and tiredness lacing the bags under his eyes. _Confederate_, she immediately concluded as the three of them heaved the man between them into their arms and to an empty hay bed towards the back of the hall.

She didn't even notice the thick bandages that covered most of the wounded man's face.

She would in time though.

* * *

Nighttime in the medical ward was her least favorite.

Shadows appeared where they didn't belong and the hallways seemed to stretch longer in the dark moonlight. She had taken post beside the bed of the man who had been brought in that afternoon with the strange face bandages that covered everything but his eyes, deciding that tucked into the back corner of the room wouldn't be as scary as roaming the halls.

She about fell from her chair when he reached out and touched her arm.

"Where...where am I?" a voice came from behind the bandages, the eyes of the man searching around in the darkness.

They glowed gold like that of a cat.

"You were shot, sir, in the leg," she explained after she regained herself from the startle.

He was silent for a while and his eyes closed. The peace did not last long and soon he began tossing about on the small bed, his hands clawing at the bandages covering his face and groaning out cries for help.

"Sir, sir!" Christine shook him awake. She touched the side of his neck and his forehead with the back of her hand. "Sir, I believe you have a fever. If you would just kindly settle down, please—"

His nails tore the bandage covering his cheeks, and Christine quickly assumed what the misery was about.

"Sir, those aren't aiding in your fever breaking, let me take them off," she whispered to him, her hands fumbling with the knots holding the gauze on. His hands were weakly trying to push hers away, but she kept unwrapping despite his protests.

She nearly dropped the bandages on the floor.

_The poor man._...

She didn't quite know how to describe it and the moonlight from the window only cast harsher shadows on his pale skin. His cheeks were sunken in and veins decorated his face in thin purple and blue lines. His eyebrows were thin to the point of perhaps not even being there and perhaps it was a trick of the light— she hoped it was merely a trick of the light— but it appeared that he had _no_ nose.

She knew at once why he had wanted the bandages left on.

The moaning continued even after she removed the hot bandages. The only thing she truly knew to do was to wait it out, the fever would have to break on its own. Her heartstrings tugged for the man in front of her, helpless to the pain he was in.

So she did what her father would've done.

She sang.

It was nothing but an old lullaby, a mountain song that she'd remembered from her childhood.

After a few verses, he calmed.

"Are you...come to take me...angel?" he croaked the mess of words out, head turning towards her.

She understood him.

"No, I am not an angel, sir," she smiled softly to herself, taking his hand in hers.

"Hm..." he hummed skeptically. "I suppose not, I had hoped this wasn't what heaven looked like."

Quietly, she laughed.

* * *

"Mrs. Clements says you are a very lucky man."

The man whom she had come to know as Erik (they had slipped into an easy friendship that past week. She had _volunteered_ herself for the night shift the past couple nights to simply be with him more, both of them exchanging thoughts on music and the uselessness of war) was sitting upright now, his head propped against the wall behind him as she changed the bandaging on his leg wound.

"How so?"

"She supposes you'll get to keep your leg, she thinks with the correct mending process you'll only have a slight limp—"

"Are you married?"

She stopped.

"Pardon?"

He shrugged his shoulders, eyes cast down toward her hand.

"You keep twisting that finger on your left hand...it's the one where the ring goes. I just wondered, that's all."

She glanced up at him from her position over his leg.

"I..."

How was she even to begin to explain? By any legal standing no she was not married, she had no document, no ring, nothing. But in her heart and in her mind she was.

"In a way," she said quietly, hoping he wouldn't push it farther.

"What is he like?"

A small smile crept to her lips. "He's very kind, his eyes are always soft and he's very rarely angry."

He hummed in understanding, watching her rewrap his thigh.

"He's not with you is he?"

She bit her lip before answering him. "No, he's a Naval Commander..." she paused, letting her hands rest atop his leg for a moment. "To be quite frank with you I couldn't even tell you which side he's even fighting for."

"I don't think it matters so long as it ends at this point. I fight just for the ability to come home."

She was going to miss him and his musings when he left. The thought of being alone again saddened her— she liked to just pretend that he wasn't leaving at all (or at least that was the preferred coping plan for the moment). Something inside her sparked to life when he laughed, something she hadn't felt since before Raoul had left. Keeping her eyes cast down, she tied off the section of gauze she was working on and moved further down his leg.

"How about you? Are you married?" she parroted back to him.

The edge of the bandages around his mouth tilted up as he smirked. She glanced up just in time to follow his eyes across the room to a chair where the man who had brought him in earlier that week sat.

"In a way."

She blushed and nodded to herself. That explained why the man hadn't left Erik's bedside the entire time they'd been there. She had suspected they weren't truly related, especially being so different from one another, but she had wrote her suspicions off as brotherly friendship. A smug smile crept to her lips as she finished bandaging.

She hoped for their sake they both survived the war.

* * *

She passed a man on the street that had the same hair color as Raoul, the same build, the same height.

It wasn't him, couldn't be him.

She longed to hold him and see his face...feel his touch upon her again...to hear his voice...

She missed him with all she had.

* * *

The fires had started in her sleep.

The city she had come to know was burning right before her eyes, crumbling into nothing but ash and memories.

Her, her Aunt and her cousins had left on horseback in the blustery February cold, bound north toward the state border and away from the coast.

Away from where she was sure Raoul must be upon a ship.

Everything had been abandoned except for the locket around her neck and a knit red scarf that she held tightly in her grasp.

* * *

It was late March, 1865.

She had woken to knocking on her bedroom door by her eldest cousin carrying the news of her Aunt's passing.

She knew then that it was time.

She penned a letter to Raoul (even though there had been no reply the last five letters she had sent and it worried her greatly) explaining the circumstances and her new plan. She would take a train to Columbia, then to Charlotte, and then into Statesville. From there she supposed she could catch a horse ride or even walk—

But no matter the way, she was going home. North Carolina. She didn't even know if her house would still be standing, but surely her tree would still be there, and even then the sky hadn't changed and she was sure that the mountains were still just as tall and still just as blue.

She was going home.

_Home._

* * *

There had still been no replies to her letters. Perhaps she had been forgotten, the last thought in the reaches of his mind. Yes, he must've forgotten her because he couldn't be dead.

She'd held out hope this long.

She wouldn't allow him to be dead.

* * *

It had been an early morning in May when she felt the wind change.

She had just opened the screen door to sit on the old rocking chair (she had found it in the spare room and was surprised that it survived the raiders of the war) on her porch with a piece of the quilt square she had started to make in her hands when she heard it.

Boots crunching on the rocky path that led to the house.

She grabbed the doorframe, fully prepared to run back for her Papa's shotgun that she kept propped up on the inside wall of the front room.

The sun glinted off a gold button of a soldiers uniform, but she couldn't tell whether the uniform itself was blue or grey. Rumors had traveled out her way that the war was over, but that didn't mean everyone wasn't hostile. Did it even matter at that point whose side the soldier had been on? Erik's words still haunted her despite having been spoken years ago: didn't matter which side anyone was on, they were fighting to return home. She set the quilt square on the seat of the rocking chair, cautiously stepping down the stairs and off her porch.

She'd recognize that stupid blond mustache anywhere.

With a strangled cry she hiked up her skirts, her boots kicking up dirt as she ran down the hill past the hayfield, past their tree and all the way to the bottom of the path where the man still trudged towards the cabin.

He had barely dropped the sack he was carrying across his back when her arms were thrown around him and she was crushed to his chest in return.

He smelt of salt, dirt and pine trees.

She had never loved him more.

"You are never leaving again, _ever_," she told him, her face still buried in his chest.

His slight chuckle was the most beautiful thing she'd heard in the past four years.

"Never."

Later, she would notice the tiredness that had taken the spark from his eyes and the scars that decorated his arms (he would tell her of the great many battles both in the harbor and on land) and learn of his adventure coming home, how he had been captured and then escaped with the help of two mysterious men, one of whom had odd wrappings covering his face and a limp he couldn't easily hide. Later, she would tell him of the past four years, of the struggles in the medical ward, of her journey back home, of reviving her father's gardens and one day, when they both would be alone with Raoul cooing over her growing womb, she would tell him of the child that was never born that she still thought of everyday but couldn't bear to name.

Raoul would create an honorary grave for him the next morning on the hill behind the church where Charles Daaé was buried.

But that was for later.

Now was for kissing the lips they both had only dreamt about the past four years and holding the other as tight as they could, the wind whipping Christine's hair around them.

The wind had brought him home to her.

The wind had always been kind to her.

Truly, she had never been happier.

* * *

_"Hey there, it's all gonna be fine. You ain't gonna die alone. You ain't gonna be forgotten"- The Punch Brothers_


End file.
